


Transference

by KarieSenkow (MukatKiKaarn)



Series: Race the Downhill [1]
Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rebuild of Evangelion
Genre: Angst, Consensual Violence, F/F, Masochism, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Third Person Limited, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Near Third Impact, temporary disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MukatKiKaarn/pseuds/KarieSenkow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If it'd make you feel better," Mari said, eyes closed behind her red-rimmed glasses. Her hands set Asuka's around her neck, curling Asuka's fingers carefully with her own to set her grip properly. "You can hurt me. If you want to blame me for what the Third did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transference

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this stupid AsuMari fic and I don't know why. I just really like the idea of Asuka being angry at and hurting Mari, and Mari enjoying it because she's sort of a nutbar and a masochistic pseudo-therapist. I dunno.

Asuka threw a fist at the window in front of her; it shook, but did not give.

She wasn't supposed to be attacking the window; she wasn't supposed to be attacking anything. She was supposed to be walking, exercising her limbs. She was supposed to be recovering from the violent destruction of Unit 03. She was supposed to be walking to exercise her legs and reteaching her brain the mechanics of walking, that her legs were there at all and functioning.

Being wired into Eva made the connection to your own flesh and blood blurry, at times. As deep as she went into the unit when it was overwhelmed by the Angel, as damaged as her muscle, nerves and bone were, the doctors told her, she should be thankful that she could walk at all. Even if her ability to move was in part from the braces and wiring wrapped around her legs to augment her own nervous and muscular systems until they recovered.

She stared out the window, out beyond the hospital ward and into the Geofront.

Or, at least, what was left of the Geofront.

The ceiling above still bore the scar of the nightmare that unfolded. The soil was blood red. The wrecked body of Unit 02-- her Unit 02!-- was still being cleaned up from the pile of parts the angel Zeruel cut it into, as was the irradiated hulk of what was left of Unit 00. Cranes were slowly peeling apart the armor to be be scrapped and stored safely out of human reach, revealing the half-melted flesh underneath.

Of course, most of the unit was just gone, entirely; consumed and absorbed into the monster that brought its destruction, and transformed from there into the etherial form of its pilot, amplified to gigantic proportions.

Which left Unit 01, and the massive, tesseract-like structure being slowly constructed around it. The Eva was still impaled on the lance driven through it by the pilot who descended from the Moon, its eyes dark and staring downwards, with no indication of what became of the boy inside of it.

If he was even still there. Asuka's forehead hit the glass, shaking it again, more gently than it had from the force of her fist. Stupid Shinji. If there was even a Shinji still in there.

"Hey."

Asuka left her head against the glass, simply pivoting her gaze to look down the corridor.

Her. The girl who talked Shinji into this idiocy. The girl who destroyed her Unit 02. The smarmy English stray.

Mari stepped closer, dressed comfortably in a sweatshirt and jeans, pressing the bottom of a can of iced coffee against her shoulder. "You look a little out--"

The can flew across the hall; the force of hitting the wall cracked the pop top, spraying the cream-colored drink across the tile floor. Metal rods clattered; Asuka's legs flexed and tensed, the flat of her forearm pressing into Mari's neck.

"This is your fault."

Mari blinked at her, glasses cock-eyed on her face, jolted down the length of her nose by the force of being thrown into the wall. "You might want to be careful," she said, twisting her neck to take the pressure off her windpipe. "You might have slipped off your feet."

"It's your fault." Asuka hissed the words out through clenched teeth. "You told him to get back in Unit 01, didn't you?"

"I told him..." Mari's eyes seemed to wander from Asuka's face, the other girl biting lightly on her lower lip as her words trailed off. Her throat swelled and twitched under Asuka's arm, pushing back against the flesh and bone pressing against it. Asuka wasn't sure if Mari's breath smelt like coffee as it ruffled her bangs, or if it was simply the lingering smell of the spilt drink saturating the otherwise sterile air.

Mari smiled back at her coyly. "I told him... if he wasn't going to fight, then he should probably get out of here."

Asuka ground her teeth, legs trembling within their braces as she leaned harder into the other pilot. "That's a lie!" Her voice was brittle, like the crack of bones breaking apart, the sound of Unit 03's limbs being torn from its body. The god-awful crunch of the entry plug collapsing and cutting into her as Unit 01 applied the full power of its jaws against the thin, comparitively weak metal. "You're lying."

"Why would I lie to you?" Mari seemed remarkably calm, even amused, through the choked sound of her voice. "I don't have a reason to lie to you."

She raised her hands to Asuka's, her palms gently resting against the backs of her hands. Asuka's instinct was the pull away, to strike the brunette across the face for touching her when she was so angry, but before she could will her hands into motion Mari was already guiding them towards her neck.

"If it'd make you feel better," Mari said, eyes closed behind her red-rimmed glasses. Her hands set Asuka's around her neck, curling Asuka's fingers carefully with her own to set her grip properly. "You can hurt me. If you want to blame me for what the Third did."

Asuka's hands shook in place.

She wanted to do it. Wanted to pour all her trembling strength into her arms, her hands, wanted to risk losing her balance, her still-faltering control of her legs, and crush the throat of the girl smiling down at her. She was grating; she was infuriating. Wundergirl, at least, always wore the same blank, bewildered expression no matter what happened.

Mari, though, strutted about like a cat, seen only when she wanted to be seen, always amused at what she did. Asuka's hands slipped from their place around Mari's neck; her leg braces rattled as she took a step back to balance herself around the puddle slowly spreading across the floor.

Mari blinked, as though surprised that she was still breathing. "Don't want to do it?"

Asuka turned up her nose, and took several heavy, uncertain steps backwards away from the other pilot. "You'd probably enjoy it," she said, words muddled as she stared at the spilt coffee, wondering how long it would take for someone to realize there was a slip hazard here now.

Mari shrugged and pushed off of the wall, stepping away from the wall in the opposite direction from where she'd arrived. "Maybe," she said with another of her cat-like smiles. "Maybe you would have, too."

Asuka snorted, crossing her arms over her chest as Mari walked away. "Yeah, alright," she said, shaking her head. "Maybe I will, then."

Mari paused just long enough to give a thumbs-up sign over her shoulder before shuffling around a corner, the sound of melodic humming red-shifting into silence as she went.

Then, she was alone again. Just herself, the window, and the wasted expanse of the now-ruined Geofront. Her hands were in front of her, still held out in front of her waist; her palms were warm where they'd pressed against Mari's throat. It was the first warmth she'd felt in weeks, the first anything she'd felt since she was pried, broken and mangled, out of the wreckage of Unit 03.

Her fingers flexed, curling in towards her palms. Something hot, something violent, stirred at the thought of crushing the life out of the enigmatic Brit's throat.

For the first time in weeks, Asuka Shikinami smiled. Maybe she will, she decided, and willed herself to continue walking.


End file.
